Director: Darlene Naponse
Writer: Darlene Naponse
Synopsis: A visual art documentary captures seasonal changes in Atikameksheng Anishnawbek (formerly Whitefish Lake), director Darlene Naponse’s Northern Ontario home community.
Film festival screenings tend to have their own set of obligatory advertisements that play before the feature presentation, as opposed to the typical slew of trailers (now featuring car commercials!) that roll prior to multiplex offerings. At the Toronto International Film Festival, these brief messages tend to include skits that are meant to inspire cheers for the festival’s many volunteers and one of two increasingly-annoying spots for local radio personalities Roz and Mocha, whom r/TIFF users are convinced will one day serve as greeters at the Gates of Hell. But the most prominent – and controversial – featurette is the festival’s “Land Acknowledgement,” a 30-second plug for the territories upon which the two-week-long cinematic showcase takes place. Footage of the Canadian wilderness is accompanied by a narration from TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey, who mentions that “[TIFF is] grateful to work on this land,” nevermind the fact that it was stolen in the first place and is now occupied by hotels, bars, and a few massive theaters upon which thousands of wealthy cinephiles annually descend to watch the latest feature from “White Filmmaker X”… or David Cronenberg, who is not at all deserving of this slander.
Anyway: It’s difficult to tell whether or not the programming of a film such as Darlene Naponse’s Aki – a mostly wordless and consistently stunning documentary that photographs and takes place on its director’s home community, Atikameksheng Anishnawbek, in Northern Ontario – comes in direct response to the criticisms the festival has faced in response to its somewhat-empty prerecorded recognition, as if the powers that be felt it might quiet the unsettled murmurs. It certainly doesn’t help that the film’s description on TIFF’s website concludes by saying, “This is the perfect film for anyone curious about the beauty of First Nations’ communities, or for those longing for their homes on the land.” (You know, just in case you weren’t aware that the call was coming from inside the TIFF Lightbox.) Yet Aki is here, celebrating its world premiere at the festival’s 50th edition, and there’s an element of kismet to that fact: That despite years of vacant gratitude from the brass nurturing the festival’s global spread, a film – albeit a small one – of this nature is receiving deserved exposure on a prominent stage.
One can only hope that those prioritizing the premiere of Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and other buzzy titles of that ilk will make time in their schedules for more intimate fare such as this. And while this critic certainly isn’t naive enough to reject the ease with which that rolls off the tongue from his current location – *checks map,* not in Toronto – it’s still fair to have dreams. Naponse’s film often has such a quality: It offers glimpses of a community that aspires to live on in its current state despite the industrial desire to uproot its history in favor of capitalistic gain. Plenty of its shots, captured by the cinematography team of Naponse, Ryan Mariotti, and Mathieu Seguin, display vast plains and forests from above as if to emphasize the spread of its focal community by visually dictating its boundlessness.
Plenty more, though, make that illimitable nature clear from up close, the camera existing seamlessly amongst the people who populate the lands formerly known as the Whitefish Lake First Nation. Children skate on a homemade ice rink, sending pucks flying across its slick surface; others play basketball and bike across a parking lot that appears to have been repurposed for play. In the film’s standout scene, the entire community gathers for a powwow, full of joyous dancing, singing, and ceremonial celebration of their heritage. Perhaps they’re also celebrating the knowledge that their land, for the most part, still stands as intended.
Of course, this euphoria can only last so long, and it’s fascinating to watch Naponse depict the changing aspects of her homeland with a perceptible eye that isn’t entirely pessimistic, but recognizes the ominous nature of what it’s witnessing. When a title card reading “Azhigwa,” or “at this time” in Anishinaabemowin, appears, the director turns her attention to these aforementioned industrial landmarks, and Cris Derkson’s sanguine cello-driven accompaniment fades away in favor of dark, droning hums that would befit another film’s introduction to a terrifying villain. Whether or not these noises were specifically created to fit the tone of the scene or are natural sounds emanating off of the factories, plants, and gray clearings where trees once stood on screen is less worth analyzing than their prominence here, though it’s safe to assume that the buzz of Naponse’s community’s most vibrant areas and its gloomier ones were captured in accordance with the filmmaker’s statement regarding the project’s quietude: “This film is intentionally non-verbal,” she wrote. “It is not silence—it is the land speaking. The wind, the water, the ice, the drum—these are our languages, too… This is not the silence of absence but the language of land.”
Even if the nonverbal languages spoken in Aki are all cut from the same cloth, that doesn’t mean they all express the same message, nor that they are all as hopeful as the last. But quite like the four seasons it uses as unofficial chapters to chart its natural course, Naponse’s film is a stellar act of endurance that acknowledges not only the land at its center, but the fact that certain things may present themselves as unwielding constants, but are never not contestable. This is why a shot of a forest beyond chopped to stumps one by one is immediately followed by a group of boys gathered to play pickleball on the same square of pavement that was a basketball court 20 minutes prior. It’s why a clump of gray pinecones withering away by the hour is almost immediately succeeded by the blaze of a campfire, a group of hunters gathered around it for warmth from both the flames and one another. No matter what’s on screen, it can be trusted that everything remained as it was meant to remain, unmeddled with by the visual artists at work here. That the same can’t necessarily be said about the land Aki depicts, and others like it, is just another reason to acknowledge its existence.
Aki premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. It will be distributed independently in the coming months.
